Don't Regret Me

Twenty three days and no post. This could be a record. The other week I went through and tried to update my journal, which had not been touched since February. Februrary! That was most certainly a record. Could so little have happened that I didn't have to turn to my journal? Watching Cloud Atlas, I realized that people back in the day used to write journals about everything. People sailing around would write all the mundane stuff down and then a hundred years later they would become valuable anthropological artifacts. Thus, as an ode to them, I must return to the journal, however trivial.

My friend sent me an email the other week, sort of thanking me, sort of inspiring me, and it reminded me that I was a really different person ten years ago. I cared more about stuff. I cared more about people. Somehow I best return to that. In the meantime, let's catch up.

Okay, nevermind. That was useless. Mostly I just had two weddings, a week long visit from San Franciscans, and a neverending deadline. On Sunday night/morning, after the wedding, I was in the hotel lobby cranking out the finishing touches on a non-masterpiece. The last New York wedding I went to, in 2008, I did a similar thing. Post-festivities and I was downstairs trying to cram in a few edits before I sent a draft off. Clearly my writing career only coalesces around New York weddings.

Right now there is a hurricane combo storm. I am underprepared but at the same time overprepared. I was built to subsist on not a lot of food, little to no light, and so far I've lost neither power, Internet, or sanity. Mary isn't here so I'm just chilling out, filling my bathtub full of water in case things go bad. Most everyone I know has lost one service already. To be flippant, nothing is different here in Fort Greene, even as I look at all the flooding photos and lower Manhattan de-powered. I can barely hear the wind tucked into my back room.

You should read Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett. It's about her friendship with Lucy Grealy, who is semi-famous for having her face constantly reconstructed due to cancer. It's the kind of book that's right up my alley, which was surprising to my friend who recommended it. She had told me to read it because it came closest to mirroring the type of relationship she had with her best friend. Somehow she thought I might not like it. That made me question why. What kind of books do I like, from her perspective?

This song by These United States is the right kind of mood setter right now: "So High So Low So Wide So Long."

"The archetypal California girl is long, lean, and tan with knobbed knees and ankles and salt-tangled, honey-colored hair. I am short and pale, with skin that burns and hair that snarls so that I leave the beach pink, itchy, and disheveled."
-Zan Romanoff, "California Girls" (2011)-

I forgot how I got to this blog, Zanopticon, but it's good. Also, I've been following this one, My Dead Parents, trying to discern if it's real or not. It almost certainly is but part of me is afraid it isn't. If it's some broader fiction project, I could even love it more so. I miss the types of blogs that existed more often long ago. Confessional, wordy, brilliant. I must find more.

"My parents have been dead for different versions of 'a while,' so I know I'm not supposed to be crushed by grief, but I never really felt sad at all. That makes me feel guilty, and a little broken. When I hear about other people being devastated by their parents' deaths I think, Shouldn't I be as sad as they are? I don't feel connected to those people at all -- I feel a mix of pity, jealously and revulsion."
-My Dead Parents, "What I Am Up To"-